The forest school programme is now firmly entrenched and practised in many schools in the UK – both in urban and town/city settings and allows participating children to benefit from real-life outdoor experiences in a woodland or natural environment.

And we have found from our merry travels visiting schools up and down the country that there is a set pattern to the kind of products they are looking for to help with this initiative.

So this blog serves as a guide to what we can offer in this respect as the Hideout House Company.

Open Air Fire Pits

Preparing and lighting camp fires is an essential part of the overall forest schools programme. Some schools – especially those in urban settings – unfortunately do not have the benefit of a wooded or forest environment actually on their school grounds so they usually opt for hiving off a part of their playing fields for this purpose.

In this respect, we are able to build a fire pit seating area which consists of woodland type rustic style benching, a fire pit and a stone gravel floor encased in a solid timber edging surround. Or if the area is bigger, we can use bark instead of gravel.

The fire pit areas can be built according to the amount of children using them, space and of course budget.

Fire Pit Shelters

Schools  – as well as wanting a fire pit – are also wanting to provide for some kind of shelter from the elements when the weather is not so nice. So we have combined the two with our fire pit shelter.

This comes in two variants. The first is an open sided octagonal gazebo whereby we have a ventilation hole in the roof to allow for the fire smoke to easily exhaust out of. These fire pit gazebos also come with internal benching (we have two sizes – 4m which caters for a class of 22 children or a bigger version at 5m which is designed for a class of 30) and half panel walls. These half panel walls allow for extra protection but they are also structural and bind the building together to stop it from racking.

We also can apply two coats of a fire retardant varnish to the underside of the roof.

Another option in this range is our 4m x 4m cooking shelter which has internal benching to three sides, the option of roll-down canvas panels to the sides and a special fire pit cum cooking facility in the middle which has a central flue going through the roof.

Or if you didn’t want to have an actual fire pit in the middle, we can always just supply one of our outdoor shelters with a marine grade PU coated canvas roof. These are available in three sizes and a choice of colours for the canvas roof – plus an additional optional extra is to have full length roll-down canvas panels to the sides.

 

Fire Pit Cabins

These are proving to be extremely popular as they also have quite a distinct and Hobbit like style to them. Perfect therefore for a wooded setting. Like the afore-mentioned cooking shelter, these cabins have a central fire pit and cooking facility with exhaust flue.

They are available in four different sizes and as they are fully enclosed, they allow for all year round use. And of course in the winter, you simply have to light the fire to keep cosy and warm inside. Optional extras allow for insulation, internal benching and tables, sun pipe, timber sub-frame base and roof windows to allow in more natural light.

They are built using premium materials including Arctic pine and a felt shingle tile roof with a pine ceiling under draw (the felt shingles are available in three different colours).

And they are usually installed on site within a couple of days so minimal inconvenience to the school.

And what’s more, the children absolutely love them and I have heard them being described over the years as many things – the Hansel and Gretel House, Hobbit House, Hideout Den etc

 

 

 

Such has been the success of our playground trim trail equipment manufactured out of recycled plastic, we have now extended out the range to make other products out of this special material. We have especially focused on those products which are most likely to be exposed to damaging elements or materials daily through the sheer application of the product – so for example mud kitchens where they are going to have a lot of mud and water poured over them; sandboxes with wet sand; planters with damp soil etc

Recycled plastic lasts a lot longer than the traditionally used timber equivalent so it is definitely worth considering for these type of products as you will get such a longer life span and more importantly, it will never rot.

The range now includes sandboxes, mud kitchens, playboats, planters, mud tables and benches.

These products can be seen on the link given below:

https://www.hideouthouse.com/recycled-plastic-playground-products/

Play equipment in schools has traditionally been made out of timber (in public play parks steel is more common due to vandalism issues) and for good reasons. It is attractive and easy to work with but it can’t withstand the rain and the cold for too long. Time consuming on-going maintenance does certainly help but the fact is that it can’t last forever and why eventually it has to be replaced.

But this is not the case with recycled plastic which due to its unique composition has many, many advantages which are listed below:

• Durability – the material is resistant to all weathers and can therefore be used all year round; it will not rot; it is splinter free so low risk of injury and it is moisture repellent. Unlike timber, it does not absorb water at all and is even resistant to salt water.
• Economical – there are a lot of savings for customers. It is low maintenance and on-going service costs are minimal plus it has a long service life (5 times that of timber for example).
• Eco Friendly – recycled plastic is produced without preservatives, is sustainable and friendly to the environment, reduces the strain on landfill and is non-polluting.

As a result of the above benefits, recycled plastic is also ideal for products in schools where there is a high exposure to elements which will cause timber to eventually rot – such as water, mud, soil, sand etc. That is why we are now using it for our planters, sandboxes, water walls, mud kitchens, bark pit edging and dipping pond platforms.

In fact the applications are endless!

For more information on our recycled plastic product range, please visit www.hideouthouse.com or call 01832 275902 or email: info@hideouthouse.com

The Problem Facing Schools Regarding The On-going Maintenance of School Play Equipment

Like anything that is used constantly, is outside the whole time and is subject to all weathers and all seasons, school playground equipment needs regularly maintaining with thorough inspection checks undertaken every month or so. Children’s safety is paramount of course but maintenance checks conducted on a regular basis also extends the life of the play equipment – think car servicing!

These checks are usually done by a site manager with a more detailed and thorough inspection by registered playground inspectors every year or so.

A lot of playground equipment in schools is manufactured out of timber and in the case of adventure trim trails, the default material section used is rounded timber posts which are dug into the ground. Rounded timber posts react naturally to different temperatures (like all timbers) but ever more so with this particular section as the timber dries out from the pith (centre) of the post causing what is known as radial cracking – which manifests itself in large cracks running down the timber. And if they become too big, the cracks will open up wide enough for the children, who are naturally inquisitive, to start sticking their fingers into the gaps.

The posts will have been dug into the ground as well and the ground made good or covered in safety surfacing so post-installation, it is very difficult to see what effect damp ground conditions will be having on the timber. Unless the post is hermetically sealed with a post saver bag or has been treated with a special paint or rubber, it is very likely that it will be absorbing a lot of ground moisture which will eventually turn rotten. Many a time have we dug out old trim trail play equipment only to find that it is rotten to the core making it very unsafe. And any playground inspector will not pass this as being safe for further use and in all likelihood, it will be condemned. And the school will then either have to pay a lot of money to have it fixed or replaced altogether (which is usually the case).

The Solution

Quite simply, you need to buy school playground equipment from us which is manufactured entirely out of recycled plastic as it has so many advantages over traditional timber. Firstly, it will never rot when placed in the ground and does not need any further protection such as the afore mentioned post saver bags – this is the reason why recycled plastic is the default material used for dipping pond platforms where the bottom section of the posts are actually submerged in the water.

Secondly, it will not splinter or crack – ever. Thirdly, it is very eco friendly as it entirely manufactured out of recycled plastic milk bottles and as we are all trying to teach and engage children about the harmful effects of plastic on the planet, this is as good a place to start as any in demonstrating good environmental practice.

Fourthly, it will last five times longer than timber and last but not least, it is very low maintenance.

Recycled plastic play equipment is certainly the new generation of play equipment for schools.

 

For further information, please contact the Hideout House Company on 01832 275902, email info@hideouthouse or visit www.hideouthouse.com

Yet again, it has been featured in the news quite a lot recently about the whole issue of global warming and its catastrophic effects on the planet if we do not get to grips with controlling the earth’s temperature rises. And of course within this whole environmental issue is the very important matter of plastic waste.

Of the 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic which are produced each year worldwide, only 9% of it is recycled which is quite a staggering statistic. But I can perhaps understand why because if countries do not have in place adequate systems for controlling such waste, it basically ends up as litter which is discarded just as easily as it was purchased. And every year 8 million metric tons of this plastic ends up in the world’s oceans – a feature which was so brilliantly covered by the BBC’s recent Blue Planet series with David Attenborough.

So where do schools come into this? Quite significantly so in fact and this is perhaps more to do with educating and fostering a mind set of environmental awareness more than anything else. The Eco Schools programme is already doing a fantastic job of making sure that schools sign up to their programme and are aware of the whole environmental agenda. Plus their reach is worldwide – the programme now runs in 67 countries and engages 19.5 million children. Their motto is “Empowering Children and Teens to Improve Our Environment”.

If the children of today are made aware, at an early age, of the problems facing the planet and are taught ways of altering their behaviour to deal with it, then I think we are in with a chance. One would hope that it would become a natural mindset to them so instead of just simply throwing away..or worse littering…those used plastic milk cartons, they would recycle them instead. Every time.

And this is one of the major reasons why we have just developed a range of school playground equipment which is manufactured entirely out of recycled plastic. I cannot think of a better way to demonstrate to children the recycling practice in action. For example, one of our pieces of trim trail play equipment uses the equivalent of 2500 plastic bottles and another benefit is that it drastically reduces the need for more landfill sites around the world. There is actually a very good charity in the UK called RECOUP which promotes the whole recycling initiative to households and which looks to change how we act and think about plastic waste.

As well as providing excellent eco credentials for a school, recycled plastic play equipment also has lots of other numerous benefits – it doesn’t rot or corrode, it doesn’t splinter and it lasts a lot longer than traditional timber. Its life expectancy is five times more so in fact.

For more information on our eco friendly products for the school playground, please contact the Hideout House Company on 01832 275902 or visit www.hideouthouse.com